Isaiah 22:1–14

God’s Message to Jerusalem

22This is a message about the Valley of Vision: ⁿ

What is wrong with you people?

Why are you on your roofs? ⁿ

²This city was a very busy city,

full of noise and wild parties.

Now your people have been killed,

but not with swords,

nor did they die in battle.

³All your leaders ran away together,

but they have been captured without using a bow.

All you who were captured

tried to run away before the enemy came.

⁴So I say, “Don’t look at me.

Let me cry loudly.

Don’t hurry to comfort me

about the destruction of Jerusalem.”

⁵The Lord God All-Powerful has chosen a special day

of riots and confusion.

People will trample each other in the Valley of Vision.

The city walls will be knocked down,

and the people will cry out to the mountain.

⁶The soldiers from Elam will gather their arrows

and their chariots and men on horses.

Kir will prepare their shields.

⁷Your nicest valleys will be filled with chariots.

Horsemen will be ordered to guard the gates of the city.

⁸The walls protecting Judah will fall.

At that time the people of Jerusalem depended on

the weapons kept at the Palace of the Forest.

⁹You saw that the walls of Jerusalem

had many cracks that needed repairing.

You stored up water in the lower pool.

¹⁰You counted the houses of Jerusalem,

and you tore down houses to repair the walls with their stones.

¹¹You made a pool between the two walls

to save water from the old pool,

but you did not trust the God who made these things;

you did not respect the One who planned them long ago.

¹²The Lord God All-Powerful told the people

to cry and be sad,

to shave their heads and wear rough cloth.

¹³But look, the people are happy

and are having wild parties.

They kill the cattle and the sheep;

they eat the food and drink the wine.

They say, “Let us eat and drink,

because tomorrow we will die.”

¹⁴The Lord All-Powerful said to me: “You people will die before this guilt is forgiven.” The Lord God All-Powerful said this.